1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to checking of software, and more specifically to identifying differences between source codes of different versions of a software when each source code is organized using incorporated files.
2. Related Art
Software generally refers to instructions, which when executed provides a corresponding function for which the software is designed. As is well known, developers often provide later versions of a software, for example, to provide enhanced functionality, fix known problems, etc.
Source code generally contains human-understandable instructions written in higher level programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, Python, etc. Typically such source code is converted into lower level language code (e.g., assembly, IL) that can be executed to provide the corresponding function. Software is generally developed at such higher levels for the convenience of developers. Therefore, each version of a software is represented by a corresponding source code.
Source code is typically organized as instructions contained in several files, with some files having incorporate statements (‘#include’ in C programming language, ‘import’ in Java programming language) which operate to include the instructions in the corresponding specified files. Incorporation implies that the higher level language instructions contained in the specified files are included as part of the file (containing the incorporate statements), before conversion into lower level languages.
There is often a need to identify differences between source codes of different versions of a software. For example, a developer migrating a software application to operate with a newer version of an operating system, may wish to identify the material differences in source codes between the older and newer versions of the operating system to determine any changes required to be made to software applications that execute based on the operating system.
In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element first appears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the corresponding reference number.